UNLIKE MOST CATEGORIES at Costco,
where items are narrowed down to the top
two or three choices, the book table represents a different challenge. In fact, each table
is almost a mini warehouse within the warehouse, as the choices are carefully curated to
catch the eyes of all members. The selection
needs to reflect the tastes and preferences of
different regions, states and cities, along with a
variety of genres, including history, fiction,
health and cooking, and show the best possible
price—including added value—for the member.

To get a better understanding of how the
book-buying department makes its selections, I not only talked with the team, but sat
in on a few buying meetings for a more intimate look at the book-buying process.

Page sages

To manage the Herculean task of sorting
through the thousands of books published
each year, Costco’s book buyer, Pennie Clark
Ianniciello, relies on the department’s assistant book buyers—Lindsay Bubitz (
children’s and young adult), Alex Kanenwisher
(basics, which includes cookbooks and gift
books) and Shana Stowers (best-sellers)—to
help her track and compare sales from previous years along with making buying decisions for the future.

It’s rare for a week to go by without a
meeting with one of the many publishers
and distributors who help keep the tables

Going undercover(s) withCostco’s book-buying teamBook ‘em,Costco

stocked—everyone from the recently formed
Penguin Random House to American Books
West, which helps place local and regional
titles in the right warehouses. The team
plans its selections about three months in
advance, always keeping an open slot for
last-minute, drop-in titles.

In addition to deciding several months in
advance which books will fill the book table,
the team tracks sales on a daily basis. While a
best-seller might spend six to eight weeks on
the table, titles that don’t sell well are returned.
“The bottom line,” explains Pennie, “is that if
a book doesn’t do the dollars, it will be pulled
from the table.”

Judging a book by its coverThree to five seconds. It’s not much time,So, when the book-buying groupmeets with representatives from thevarious publishing houses, theexchange is often peppered with ques-tions such as: Who is the audience?Why has this person written a book?What else has he or she written? Where andwhen does the story take place?

The questions are a way for both parties to
be sure the jacket best reflects the book’s content and catches the eye. In fact, it’s not unusual
for Pennie to place a dummy copy of a book on
the warehouse’s book table to see if it stands
out from or gets lost among other titles.

“Pennie has a real eye for jackets. She
always has, in the 30 years I’ve known her,” says
Simon & Schuster’s Adene Corns, vice president, distributor sales and retail marketing,
clubs. “There’s no question that she has a good
eye for what needs to be changed, whether it’s
a color, the image or the size of the type.”

Location, location, location

In addition to Costco’s global buying phi-losophy, book-buying decisions are made onnational, regional and even individual ware-house levels. Authors such as Jamie Ford,Garth Stein and Mike Ramsdell have movedfrom local success to having their books soldacross the U.S. after getting their start at aCostco warehouse.

“Buying books is, in general, a lot of fun,”says Shana, “but I especially like bringing inthe lesser-known titles and watching as theirsuccess continues to build.”She explains that these days not only doesthe team talk with publishers to find outwhere authors live or set their novels, but theyarts & entertainment